The Best Brownies Ever

These are based on a Nigel Slater recipe, with my edits.


250g soft butter (who has soft butter? Throw in microwave on defrost for 30s or so works...)
60g best quality cocoa
60g flour
300g caster sugar
3 large eggs + one extra egg yolk
½ tsp baking powder
250g best quality dark chocolate
¼ tsp each of the following:
- ground allspice
- ground cinnamon
- ground nutmeg
- cayenne pepper (or, if you can find it, ground ancho chilli powder – it’s MUCH milder. The cayenne will make these warm)
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line a small roasting tin (around 20cm by 30 cm) with greaseproof paper. Break up 200g of the chocolate into squares and melt in the microwave – the recommended method is to heat for 30s, stir, and heat again until nearly all liquid. Overheating it is Bad. Chop the other 50g into gravel-sized pieces.

Beat together the butter and the sugar until light and creamy, and then beat in the melted chocolate and vanilla extract. Beat in the eggs one at a time, and then sift in the flour, cocoa and spices, baking powder and salt. Stir in the remaining chocolate and scrape into a tin. Try not to save TOO much to eat raw – the flavour of the spices is EVEN BETTER in the cooked version.

Bake for no longer than 25 minutes. It should still be soft in the middle, though not actually raw. A bit of gooeyness is important…

Leave to cool in the tin, until completely cold. They fall apart if you try and get them out when they’re straight out of the oven.